


two steps forward, one step back

by chaoticsandstorm



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Akira POV, Character Study, Drabble, Female Friendship, Forgiveness, Gen, Moving On, Recovery, Relationship Study, graveyard, kind of a relationship study between akira and hinami, kind of an akira character study, no editing we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 21:39:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16026482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticsandstorm/pseuds/chaoticsandstorm
Summary: This isn't how Akira ever thought they would meet. She pictured shouting, weapons being drawn, blank stares, and blame being thrown like explosive confetti. She pictured herself screaming at the Daughter ghoul, she pictured the Daughter ghoul screaming back. She hadn't expected Fueguchi Hinami.(in which a dove and a ghoul are two sides of the same coin)or: akira dwells on life, the ccg, hinami fueguchi, and what it all means.





	two steps forward, one step back

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is not nearly as good as you want it to be  
> EDIT: holy guacamole how did this get more kudos than all of my other fics combined in under 24 hours???

They stand together in front of the grave. Fueguchi's expression is contemplative as she stares down, absent of hatred or rage. The peace in her expression stuns Akira.

This isn't how Akira ever thought they would meet. She pictured shouting, weapons drawn, blank stares, and blame being thrown like explosive confetti. She pictured herself screaming at the Daughter ghoul, she pictured the Daughter ghoul screaming back. A chance to finally air her grievances, to make her father's killer understand, deep in her blackened, bitter soul, exactly how it felt to be orphaned and alone in the world. Akira had never expected that when the time finally came, she felt nothing. Just sad and defensive. Fueguchi met her with hugs and knowing eyes, met her with acceptance and forgiveness. Akira had lived with the anger for so long, even as the rest melted away, that she floundered. If neither of them were angry, if neither of them felt any need for revenge, if both of them were just tired, and sad, and _ready_ for the endless cycle of violence to end, what did that leave them?

Fueguchi was fourteen when she lost both parents at the hands of Akira's father. Yet Fueguchi can stand over his grave without an ounce of anger or bitterness, something Akira knows isn't easy. She herself still grapples with the death of her parents, and has not found it in her heart to forgive, only letting time ease the wound. Akira finds it hard to believe Fueguchi harbours no ill will. Akira had nothing to do with their deaths, their blood has not stained her hands. They were ghouls determined to be a risk to society, and so the CCG took appropriate measures. She loses no sleep over their deaths.  
Except that isn't quite right.

Akira sighs and shifts her weight, gravel crunching beneath her feet. There are many good reasons for Fueguchi to be angry. One being that the CCG was deeply corrupt, riddled with poison and bullets at every level of its organisation, and Fueguchi's parents were innocent of any crime except being born ghouls. They were doomed from the start because somewhere along the line, a man decided that power was more important than anything else, and began a fearmongering campaign. Akira was raised on that propaganda, was accustomed to it flowing through her veins in place of blood, and despite all the years she spent with the absolute conviction that she had the moral highground in her slaughters, Akira knows she was wrong. She was so wrong. She thought she was doing what was best for the world, what would keep young girls like her from being orphaned. Instead, she managed to become part of a regime that did exactly that: orphan young girls. Even as Akira does a mental tally of all possible weapons around her, she wouldn't blame Fueguchi if she ran her through with her kagune. It's too much to forgive and forget. Too much bad blood.

Akira still has not been able to feel much about the revelation of the CCG being corrupt. Her limbs are heavy and her head is filled with something like static, which could be the lingering injuries, but could also be the shock. The gravel shifting underneath her feet booms like thunder, crackles like fire. The wind is a hailstorm about to sweep them all away.

It's not like Akira had a whole lot of time to process the realisation that her life's work was for naught, that the cause she fought for was built on ash and death and deception. In one instant, she was left with a choice. Betray the CCG and everything she stood for to save the shade of a former co-worker, or stand back as she had so many times, during so many slaughters. And really, that was no choice at all. Takizawa's eyes were shot through with ghoul red-and-black, his nails cracked unnaturally, his posture bowed and slouched in a way he had never allowed himself to stoop to before, and she _knew_ , in that instant, that he was not the Takizawa Seidou she had known. He was something else. Something inhuman. Not fully ghoul, not fuly human. All the same, when she saw the blades hurtling through the air, she made her decision without hesitation, and threw herself in front of him.

She saved Takizawa. At the time, Akira thought she was giving up her life for his. She didn't expect to make it out alive. If her wounds didn't kill her, if the blood loss didn't drain all strength from her body, if the ghouls didn't turn on her and rip her limb from limb, she thought that one of her former employees and comrades would have finished her off. Haise, maybe. As she lay in a pool of her own blood, Akira was not really thinking of anything but _painfiredeathbetrayal_ , but for the briefest of moments her mind cleared, and she thought _maybe, just maybe_ that was how the Daughter ghoul felt when her parents died.

The wind picks up, a keening whistle. Fueguchi's eyes flicker briefly towards her before she turns her focus back to the grave. For all that she appears to be harmless, it is impossible to forget Fueguchi's past with Aogiri. It shows in her every movement, in the heightened response to the gravel and the wind. It's not like Akira's own history with the CCG is any better, she supposes bitterly. Fueguchi must be constantly aware of her in the same way Akira is of Fueguchi. Willing to listen and to trust Akira, even, but not stupid enough to turn her back on Akira. Not after everything.

It is almost funny. Even after everything, Akira finds herself willing to listen, much the same way Fueguchi is. When she was young, she dreamed of finding the monster that killed her mother, imagined driving a quinque through its haunting red eyes. After her father's death, she found herself closing up. She did not dream of the monster who killed him. She did not dream at all. For years, the remnants of the _rage_ she felt towards the Daughter ghoul drove her onwards, allowing her to push past her grief, climb up the corporate ladder, but then-

It died away. Just as Takizawa, Amon, her father, her mother, countless co-workers and trainees she laughed and shook hands with died. You could say their deaths broke something inside Akira, or you could say it set something free, but either way she found herself releasing the anger and letting go of Fueguchi Hinami. Through all of her experiences, she had learned that life is far too short and precious to remain angry. You need to work with what you have, be grateful for what you have, and if sometimes you cry at night for what you have lost? That's fine, just remember to get out of bed in the morning and _keep pushing._

The whole point of this useless exercise, of Fueguchi hugging Akira in the first place, is closure. It is something they both crave like it is a physical entity, reach for it even with bleeding, cut hands. Even if they do not completely trust each other, the ties that bind them are made of titanium. Akira's father killed both of Hinami's parents. Hinami's surrogate sister, Rabbit, killed Akira's only remaining parent. This blood-stained connection is irrevocable. However, both have suffered enough, lived enough, watched others die enough to know that they cannot hold onto anger. If they allow it to continue to eat away at them like acid, they will never be able to move on with their lives, particularly now that they are on the same confusing, frustratingly complicated side. Neither can erase the sins of their souls, or wash away on the blood on their hands, but that is theirs to deal with. They have only two options: Forgive and let go, or allow it to consume them.

It is eerily silent in the graveyard. The only sound is the whistling of the wind in their ears. Akira looks at Fueguchi, only to discover Fueguchi is looking at the sky with a faint smile playing on her lips in that eerily calm way of hers. For all the death and destruction she has reaped, Fueguchi has managed to find peace within herself and is making amends. Akira is not sure she will ever reach that stage, but she is so, so tired of being angry, of seeking revenge, and of watching others run themselves into the ground with stupid choices born out of grudges and long-remembered hatred. There are many things she could say to Fueguchi now, like _how could you?_ and _he was my father, you left me alone_ , or even _did he really have to die?_ , but those are pointless. She could refuse her forgiveness now, could turn Fueguchi away, but really? Akira made her choice when she tried to die for Takizawa.

She smoothes down her shirt and turns back to the grave, allowing her facade to drop. Akira is weary, and she feels the exhaustion seeping into her bones. She stands in reverence for a moment, observing the grave. Her father was not perfect. He was not a perfect husband, a perfect father, or a perfect human. His eccentricities and difficulty relating to people was part of what earned him the name 'Mad Mado'. He forgot to pick her up from school often. He missed her ballet recital when she was four. She came home one day to find him drinking in their kitchen, sobbing into the cold tiles. But he was her father, and she loved him.

Akira kneels by the grave and whispers a silent apology that Fueguchi’s ghoul ears surely pick up. If she hears, she says nothing. Akira stands, and breathes. Anger cannot bring back the dead. It only hurts the living, and those around them. She looks at Hinami and nods. Together they exit the graveyard, leaving the past firmly where it belongs:

In the past.

**Author's Note:**

> previous titles of this fic:  
> i tried drowning the past, turns out it can swim  
> two girls in a graveyard with shovels  
> the past wouldn’t stay dead so i hit it with a shovel  
> if the past won't stay dead bring out the shovels  
> two steps forward one step back, the samba with grief


End file.
